


But the Cat Came Back

by cityfibers



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Getting Together, Humor, LITERALLY, M/M, Pining, Secret Identity Fail, actual stark intern!Peter, grad student!Peter, inaccurate depiction of furries probably, is it too early to start tagging stuff as infinity war AU: everybody lives, wade is a cat person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 13:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cityfibers/pseuds/cityfibers
Summary: After a fight gone wrong, Deadpool is transformed into a cat.Naturally, Peter's the one stuck taking care of him.





	But the Cat Came Back

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic in... 6 or 7 years? Ha. Um. Based off a Tumblr prompt from [here](https://symbiote-spideypool.tumblr.com/), which I'll link/post at the end of the story because it's pretty spoilery.
> 
> It's my firm belief that every fandom needs a transformed-into-a-cat!fic.

“There’s shit _everywhere_.”

That’s the first thing Peter blurts out when Iron Man and Cap finally show up in the middle of all the chaos and ask for a situation report. It’s not the most poetic way to sum up the ongoing fight, but Peter’s already been here for close to an hour, wading through feathers and claws and fur. He was being chased by an honest-to-god giraffe not even ten minutes ago and only escaped when he’d scaled high enough out of its reach.

In fact, it’s still waiting below, pacing on the sidewalk and occasionally gnashing its teeth in Peter’s general direction. It’s a little threatening and honestly quite awful.

“Really,” Peter hears Tony chuckle through the earpiece in his mask. “Hear that, Cap? Better watch where you and Barnes are stepping down there.”

“Bucky’s already heading for one of the rooftops,” Steve answers. “Only thing he needs to worry about up there are bird droppings.”

“Plenty of those too,” Peter grumbles, maneuvering a tight swing around the corner of a building to avoid some dive-bombing blue jays. He drops back down to the street when the flock tries to swoop back up to attack him again. Beaks and tiny little talons aren’t exactly fatal, but they sting like hell, as Peter now knows from firsthand experience.

He lands lightly on his feet, then immediately has to back-step a charging bison. “Is it just me,” he wonders aloud, “but are super-villains just getting weirder and weirder nowadays?”

“Good old-fashioned robberies and world domination’s getting too stale apparently,” Tony agrees. “This guy—Dr. Fury was it?—gets his jollies how? Turning people into _animals_?”

“I think the newscasters misheard him,” Peter says. “It’s actually Dr. Furry. Like. A furry.” He can’t believe this is an actual conversation they have during fights now.

“What,” says Tony.

“He has—I think he has _fox ears_ , Mr. Stark,” Peter blurts, and now that he’s started he doesn’t think he can stop. “Two fox ears! On his head! And then normal human ears, you know, in the places where regular humans have ears, so that’s four total ears! _Why_. Is that useful? Is that _necessary_?”

“What the hell is a furry,” Barnes asks, voice crystal clear over the comm line.

He’s met with ten solid seconds of silence, then—

“I think it’s some sort of—of cosplay thing,” Steve answers knowledgeably.

Peter makes a small, distressed noise he really hopes the comms don’t pick up.

“Anyway,” he says, before this train wreck of a discussion can derail further, “Dr., uh, Furry showed up this afternoon with this—sort of a laser gun? And he just starts beaming it into the crowd and it immediately turns people into all sorts of animals—I think he called it a _fur-ray_ —”

He definitely hears more than one groan over the line.

“Okay, that’s actually fucking _hilarious_ ,” a loud, familiar voice says from behind Peter, and he doesn’t even need to pause from webbing up a particularly aggressive golden retriever to recognize that it’s definitely Wade behind him.

“I hope that’s not who I think I heard,” Tony sighs. “Unfortunately, I am so rarely wrong.”

Peter turns around and briefly raises a hand in greeting as Steve says sharply in his ear, “Spider-Man, keep an eye on Deadpool, especially around all these civilians.”

“Better yet, if you could tell him to skedaddle and leave it to the less stabby professionals, there’s a small chance he’ll actually listen to you,” says Tony.

Barnes doesn’t say anything, as usual, but the silence from his end definitely has a distinctly displeased air. Although Peter would guess it’s not Wade’s more violent proclivities that annoy Barnes, just… everything else about him, like the jokes and chatter and his general personality.

“He won’t be a problem,” Peter hopes—assures.

The words are barely out of his mouth before Wade scoops up a koala bear that’s mid-lunge onto Peter’s leg, claws extended. It lets out a weird, angry little squawk before sinking its teeth into Wade’s forearm.

Wade just coos at it. “Aww, that’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen. Though I shoulda known something was up, koala bears are _not_ native to New York.” Without missing a beat, he draws out a needle from—somewhere and jabs it quickly into one of the animal’s flailing legs. Within seconds it’s unconscious, and it slips through Wade’s grip and lands on the sidewalk with a heavy ‘thunk.’

“You should maybe try not dropping them,” Peter advises.

“Wow, that definitely doesn’t sound like a problem,” Tony says.

“Whoops, butterfingers,” says Deadpool. “Here’s some animal trivia I learned today, Spidey—koalas are surprisingly slippery. They’re like nature’s bars of soap.”

“We should wrap this up.” Lowering his voice so Wade can’t quite hear, Peter mutters, “I can’t be late to office hours today, Mr. Stark, midterms are coming up. Have you ever been hounded by stressed undergrads? It’s not pretty.” Raising his voice again, he says, “Okay, so. That ray gun Dr. Furry’s got over there? Anyone hit by its beam gets turned into an animal, and I’m pretty sure he’s using it to control them to attack us too.”

“We need to get that weapon,” Steve says. “If we can distract him long enough to get the ray from him, it should stop the attacks, and we can figure out how to reverse its effects.”

“Should be easy enough with all of us here,” says Peter, eying Dr. Furry’s cloaked figure, perched on top of a goddamn lion as he waves his animal ray gun around, firing beams wildly into the air and actually _cackling_ like some weird cartoon villain. “Deadpool—can you help me draw his attention, maybe do some herding?”

“No worries, Spidey,” Deadpool says, pulling the biggest syringe gun Peter’s ever seen in his life out of his belt. “You know, you’re lucky I just restocked on animal tranquilizer.”

“So lucky,” says Peter.

With a whoop, Deadpool launches himself into the fray of animals. “This is like a ticket to the best zoo ever!” he shouts at Peter. “A zoo where someone did a piss-poor job of putting up the enclosure fencing and they let you wrestle with all the animals!”

The shouting and sudden whirl of motion does seem to draw Dr. Furry’s focus. His attention shifts from Tony, who had been firing what looked like nets down from the air, attempting to clear some of the animals surrounding and protecting him, back to Peter and now Wade. Peter sees Dr. Furry’s mouth move, forming a sneer as he yells something at them, but it’s impossible to make out over all the growling, howls, and chirps.

“Got an opening,” Tony announces, and in the sky the Iron Man suit angles into a sharp descent, aiming straight at the man on the lion.

Down on the ground, Steve narrowly dodges the snapping jaws of an enormous crocodile, slamming the heel of his foot into its snout. It rears back, hissing, probably deciding something along the lines of _fuck that_ as it retreats. Without pause, Steve spins around to punch a cow straight in the face, and. Okay. Not even Captain America himself, Peter decides, can make something as ridiculous as punching a cow look badass.

“Be careful,” Steve cautions Tony. “No unnecessary risks. We should have the shot cleared for Bucky soon anyway.”

“Won’t need it,” Tony scoffs as he jets down, lazily spiraling around the beams from the animal ray that seem to miss him by a hair’s breadth. “You know, I doubt that thing can even penetrate the gold-titanium alloy of the suit—”

He’s so close, maybe two seconds away from his target, when it happens—because of course as he gets closer, he becomes a bigger target himself, and this guy’s aim can only be so bad, or maybe he gets lucky—but the shot just manages to clip the leg of the Iron Man suit. Peter almost thinks it missed for a split second as Tony doesn’t react, but not even a moment later he sees the armor wobble, then change its trajectory wildly, completely missing Dr. Furry and crash landing into a group of food carts clustered almost a hundred feet away from his intended target.

There’s an icy cold grip in Peter’s chest, and it only unclenches slightly when he sees movement in the debris, something slowly making its way out and—

“Holy _shit_ ,” says Wade, as a full-grown Bengal tiger pulls itself from the debris, shaking bits of food and scattered armor off its coat. If Peter didn’t know any better, he would say it has an expression of irritation and chagrin on its face. “Holy shit,” Wade repeats, ignoring what looks like a snapping turtle clamped tightly by its jaw to his thumb. It clings tenaciously even as his arms windmill about. “Spidey look—he’s _Tony the Tiger_.”

That startles a laugh out of Peter even though holy shit, Iron Man just got turned into a goddamn tiger, but apparently that moment of distraction is enough for a man who decided one day that Dr. Furry was an appropriate super-villain name to catch Deadpool off-guard. The blast from the animal ray hits him dead-center between his shoulders, and it actually sends him flying, his form shrinking beneath a flash of light.

Only Peter’s fast reflexes prevent him from being next—he curses as he flips through the air, over the beam and towards its source.

He doesn’t know who reaches the guy first, if it’s him, or Steve, or Barnes. He just knows that as soon as he sees Cap’s shield in the air, he’s already heard the crack of Barnes’ rifle, double strands of his webbing fired at the Doctor’s arms. The sniper shot lands perfectly on his wrist as Steve’s shield slams into his chest, Peter’s webbing the only thing stopping him from flying right off his lion.

The ray gun falls from Dr. Furry’s injured wrist and—is it made of glass or what? Shoddy workmanship much?—shatters into pieces on the ground. A respectably sized shockwave, accompanied by blinding light, rips through the surroundings, sending some of the smaller animals flying—Peter manages to single-handedly snatch a very distressed hamster out of the air and set it down gently—and even managing to make Steve stagger back a few steps.

The silence after the cacophony of animal noises is almost eerie as Peter blinks the spots from his vision. He looks around, sees Steve doing the same, another figure on a nearby rooftop disappearing from the ledge; to his relief, they’re no longer surrounded by a menagerie. Instead, it’s what must be over a hundred dazed and, awkwardly enough, mostly unclothed civilians, looking around in confusion. The screaming would probably start any moment now.

Peter looks over towards the food carts where, sure enough, Tony is standing, human again. There’s chili absolutely dripping from his shoulders, and of course he’s unashamedly buck ass naked, which, _why_ , Peter can see the remains of his suit _right there_. Steve’s already made his way over, shield in hand, trying to casually and desperately position it between Tony and the gathering crowd of onlookers.

“Pleaseputpantson pleaseputpantson,” he chants under his breath, staggering back to the last place he saw Wade. It’s 50/50 with Deadpool—sometimes he stays around long after the fight is done, following Peter around way longer than is socially acceptable. Other times it’s almost like he vanishes mid-sentence. It’s a great way to avoid clean-up duty, even though Peter can’t imagine anyone trying to make Deadpool responsible for cleaning anything up.

It looks like today is one of the latter instances; there’s no sign of Wade anywhere, except—

Peter frowns, looking down at the pile of Kevlar and shredded leather. The distinctive red and black pattern are clearly recognizable as Deadpool’s suit, tattered as it is from the fight, and of course there’s the syringe gun, empty now, only a few feet away. But no Wade.

That’s when he sees something move under the fabric, and oh. Oh no.

“Okay, now I think we have a problem,” Peter says, not sure who’s still listening on the comms anymore.

A scraggly, hairless little head pokes out from underneath the leather. Its ears perk up, and the small, pinkish nose twitches, scenting the air.

“Wade?” Peter asks tentatively, and ohhh no, that little hairless cat head immediately swivels to the sound of his voice, bright yellow eyes zeroing in on his face. Instead of making some sort of normal cat noise, he _growls_.

Peter’s definitely not making it to his office hours today.


End file.
